


No Rest for You, No Rest for Me

by CopperCaravan



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Fera Shepard, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hospitalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-11 00:10:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4413341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperCaravan/pseuds/CopperCaravan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set prior to/at the beginning of Mass Effect 2, prior to Shepard's resurrection; Jeff visits his Commander in the Cerberus labs and reminisces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Rest for You, No Rest for Me

Joker has dreams nowadays.

**The Good Nights.**

Used to be, the stims and sims and pain in his bones kept him awake—long shifts in the pilot’s seat were as long as he could stand to make them.

Used to be, Doctor Chakwas would make her way up to the bridge after a while, threaten to sedate his ass if he didn’t limp it down to the crew quarters for some “rest.” He slept. He never rested.

Used to be, Anderson would not-so-gently remind him that a pilot’s got to be there, “one hundred and ten percent, Joker. Can’t get the job done right with tired eyes.”

And then. _Commander Shepard, reporting for duty, sir._ Salute snapped, locker prepped, and she’s already on the bridge. One more small-talking, how-do-you-do-Joker, pain in the ass aboard. Ahoy matey.

He’d waited for it. All damn shift. Waited and waited for _Commander Shepard, hero of the Blitz, nice to meet you._ He’d waited for _You’re damn right it’s nice to meet me, now get out of here so I can fly the damn ship._ He’d waited for _Commander Shepard, hero of the Blitz, I hear you’re all busted up inside._ He’d waited for _Fuck off._ He’d waited for _Commander Shepard, hero of the Blitz_ because he’d waited for _Jeff Fucking Moreau, best damn pilot in the Alliance._

And she hadn't come.

And then three days in, finally, she had. Midway through the off-shift, when nobody but the skeleton crew had to be up and running. Nobody on the bridge or on the comms or on the check systems but him, way past when he needed to be. And they weren’t even out; they were docked at the Citadel, picking up somebody to go do something at some place with some people and some stuff. He didn’t need to be in the cockpit. He couldn’t be anywhere else.

He was sitting in his chair, ignoring some flight sims, ignoring his protein bar, ignoring the weariness in his body and his eyes and his bones. And trying his damnedest to ignore her light steps up the bridge to the back of his seat.

He braced himself, tensed up, waited for the chatter. _I’m Commander Shepard, hero of the goddamned blitz, shouldn’t you be sleeping..._

And she said “Wanna play cards?”

That’s the dream Jeff has on the good nights.

 

**The Bad Nights.**

It’s all just screaming and colors and heat and cold and space. And _space._

It’s all just “Joker, I’m coming to get you.”

It’s all just “No, I can still save her.”

It’s all just “Jeff, get in the escape pod. Please.”

It’s all just “No, I can still save you.”

— _But that’s not what I said, is it?—_

It’s all just a moment, a button hit too soon—but it was all too late—a broken wrist reaching toward a sealed door, a breath lost in his throat.

_Shepard!_

It’s all just space.

The space outside the pod, filled with fire and debris and panic and watching.

The space inside the pod, not full with just him and panic and watching.

The space in the sentence where she should be, in the memory, in the pod, in the co-pilot’s seat with a deck of cards and a sloppy, sleepy bun of dark hair and a too-big T-shirt that smells like cinnamon and gun oil.

But when he wakes up the room is cold and sterile and white and dark and the sheets are tangled around his waist and his ankles and his wrists and there’s sweat and fear and windows that look out onto a skyline full of nothing and a bed that’s too big for him and too small for all the flailing his nightmares cause.

And there’s just him and empty space and her voice echoing in his head.

He spends the rest of the early morning hours sitting in a cold shower on the third floor of a Cerberus base.

 

**The Days.**

He sits in another room, in another station, just as cold and sterile and white. He sleeps back there, but he lives in here, in this small room with one hard seat and tiled floors and metal walls and a floor-to-ceiling window of double-paned Plexiglas between them.

Between a body and the cause of death.

Between her pilot and his commander.

Between him and his friend.

Between Jeff and Shepard.

Space filled with glass filled with a view that changes each week.

At first, he thought they’d lied to him. He thought they’d brought him in and sat him down and told him pretty lies to get him to work—to fly—for them. The curtain on the other side of that window never moved and there’d never been any shadowy movement behind it. He’d sat there and waited. And waited and waited and waited. And three days in, finally, he’d railed against them, beaten the glass with his fists till he thought he’d break his hands and they’d restrained him.

_Very traumatic. Not yet. Doesn’t look like Shepard anymore. Epidermis. Loss of Oxygen. Tissue damage. Calm down._

Words he hadn’t heard. Words he hadn’t cared about. Words he’d replaced with his own words.

_Grief. Now. Have to save her. Cinnamon. Joker’s hand, d’you get it? Her voice. Bad dreams._

They’d kept the curtain closed for several more weeks after that, but a woman’s voice had spoken to him each day. Heavily accented and over the invisible comms, she’d say _We’re going to be working on her legs today, Joker. The bones need to be reinforced for proper regrowth, like a vine running up a lattice._ And then she’d say _ok?_ And he’d nod, but there was no one in the room with him to see.

Then they got to _We’re going to restart her heart today, Joker._ He started flying for them. For him. For her.

Then they got to _We’re going to open the curtain today, Joker._ He moved the chair all the way to the window, even though she was still covered almost completely in a sheet. He thought about his psych eval back on the Citadel—the paid-to-worry face of his evaluator, the yelling, the restraints, the checked boxes and stamped forms. Anderson. _“Son, you just need to take some time off, get your head back on. It’s only temporary. You’ll be back in the black in no time, Joker.”_ The nametag he hadn’t read on the woman at the outpatient desk. _“The Alliance has setup a temporary housing arrangement for you, until you’ve been reinstated.”_ The man in a white uniform who’d found him in a bar. _“I represent a certain organization that is very interested in your skills, Mr. Moreau. And I think we have some information on something—on some_ one _—that would also be of interest to you.”_ He’d followed. He’d waited.

Then they got to _We’re going to let you see her today, Joker._ He wasn’t allowed to touch and he wasn’t allowed to stay, but they ushered him in, let him stand there with his hands covering his mouth and holding in the sounds even as he let the tears fall. Her skin was rough, sliced and raw and fragile, and more cybernetics than he could imagine were blinking and beeping and peeking out of her body. And he thought, for just a second, that it was all wrong, that this was all wrong, that _this is all wrong!_ But they walked him back to the observation room and he sat back in his seat and watched them stand over her. He’d pushed those thoughts away.

Then they got to _You can come see her, Joker._ And he’d sat down by her bed— _her_ bed, because _it_ was starting to look like _her_ again—and been so afraid that he’d made a mistake. And he’d cried. And he’d let the sounds out this time—the sobs and the whines and the keening sound of sorrow. _I’m sorry Shepard. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I did this to you._ And the woman with the pretty face and the accented voice had let him cry for a long time before she’d had him flown back. He hadn’t come back to Shepard for a week.

Then he got to _You can go see her, Joker._ And he’d sat down by her bed, again. And he’d been afraid, again. And he’d cried, again.

And he’d held her hand.

He’d brushed his fingertips across her knuckles.

He’d come back the next day.

They make him wait outside, in his observation room, while they poke and prod and mend. Then they let him in for a few hours. Visitation. Like she’s in a coma, or asleep, or... Maybe she is.

He brings a deck of cards and plays a one-sided game and lets her win.

He reads to her, an Elcor romance, and he imagines her laughing at him.

He tells her about the memorials.

He whispers _I’m sorry Shepard, Wake up Shepard, Forgive me Shepard, I miss you Shepard._

_Please Shepard._

He tells her about the bad nights, about the bad dreams, about the empty space.

He tells her about the good nights, about the good memories, about her. He tells her about his family and his days in the academy and his baseball cap.

And when he’s back on the far side of that glass, he doesn’t focus on the window between them. He doesn’t think about the space.

He just waits for Shepard to come back.


End file.
